


I Didn't

by beckalina



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-02
Updated: 2010-02-02
Packaged: 2017-10-06 23:09:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/58749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beckalina/pseuds/beckalina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I often wondered if you existed for the sole purpose of causing me endless aggravation. Stream-of-consciousness set Post-Hogwarts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Didn't

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written 5/26/2003

I remember when it started. I have an extraordinary memory. I remember entire conversations that were held when I was a child. My first memory of my life takes place shortly after my second birthday, from what Mother always told me. I say that I remember the first steps I took, but Mother said that was preposterous, I couldn't possibly remember something from when I was a mere eighteen months. It was a constant point of contention between us. I'm deviating from the subject though, aren't I?

As I was saying, I remember when it started. It was during a fantastically boring Potions class during our sixth year. I believe we were working on a restorative potion. Snape had just deducted ten points from Gryffindor for disrupting the class after a well directed--by me of course--Sneezing Charm sent you into near convulsions. It was quite an amusing sight. Your eyes clenched tight, glasses askew, your face a marvellous shade of red. After Granger so graciously cast the reversal--losing Gryffindor another ten points for further disruption--you focussed your attention on me and fixed me with a glare that could only be described as murderous. I returned the glare, of course. Or rather, I intended to. However, something stopped me. Whether this something was that idiot Longbottom losing grip of the root he was supposed to be chopping--causing it to fly across the room and hit me squarely in the back--or . . . something else. Even with my impeccable memory, I can't quite explain what happened that day.

I often wondered if you existed for the sole purpose of causing me endless aggravation. Of course, there was the belief that you were born to rescue our world from the Dark Lord, but I never bought into that--family allegiances aside. You didn't have that certain . . . je ne sais quoi that one would associate with an almighty saviour. I was never amongst the faction that treated you as a celebrity, a deity--a fact made more than obvious over the years, I'd think. You annoyed me. If you hadn't been born, I wouldn't have had to attend school with those disgustingly common people--the Mudbloods, the Weasleys. How wonderful our world would have been if not for you--Mudbloods in their place and their supporters rotting away in cemeteries. More than once, I considered stealing Father's Time-Turner and preventing your parents from conceiving you. Of course, I was an impetuous fool at the age of thirteen. I've since learnt of the perils of changing history.

It was more than that, of course. I couldn't possibly hate someone for simply being born--I'm not my father, after all. We first met in Madam Malkin's. You seemed so shell shocked, I was certain you were a Mudblood. They have a look, you know--walking about Diagon Alley with wide eyes and slightly nervous expressions. When I was younger I liked to tease them. Great fun, taunting Muggles and Mudbloods. I struck up a conversation with you, had to know if you would become an ally or enemy. Those who aren't allied to our causes are our enemies. Simple. Perhaps I should have extended you the hand of friendship then. You hadn't yet met that poor--in every meaning of the word--excuse for a wizard you called your friend. Our friendship would have been the stuff of legends, you know. But of course, I didn't know who you were, and Malfoys don't befriend all who come along. There is a proper decorum to be followed when choosing friends. Only befriend those who can do things for you. I was taught that at a very young age. Once I learnt your identity, it was too late. You chose a Weasley over me and you hadn't known him but a few hours. With loyalty like that, you should've been in Hufflepuff.

I knew of you before we met, of course. Everyone in our world knew of the great Harry Potter, The-Boy-Who-Lived. The tales I was told as a child were, I'm sure, vastly different from those told to other children. The tale of the death of your parents was told to me as a bedtime story. Voldemort ridding the world of two more people who were against our cause, only to be defeated by an infant and the protection afforded by the infant's Mudblood mother. In the end, I was told, Voldemort would rise again and Harry Potter would die a rightful death. I would dream of a boy my age screaming in pain under the Cruciatus Curse and finally meeting his end in a flash of green light. Some would call such dreams nightmares. I never thought of them as such.

Funny that I would find myself in love with the boy whose death once dominated my dreams. That day in Potions, something shifted and suddenly my carefully crafted world was tossed into upheaval. It had nothing to do with being gay, I'd known that from the age of ten. In addition to the amazing memory, I'm also quite intuitive. It's surprising how lenient my father was in that respect. So long as I married and produced one male heir, my sexuality was of no importance. Pansy does, of course, turn a blind eye to my dalliance on the side--as my mother did to my father's. Such is our way. I've no complaints. I'm straying yet again, awful habit. I say that I fell in love with you in the same manner in which I say that I love my wife. I don't honestly believe that I loved you, of course. Love was never something treasured in my household. Oh, my parents loved each other, in their own ways. Father loved that Mother was beautiful and produced him a male heir. Mother loved that Father provided her with all her heart desired.

It was lust, I'm certain. The utter contempt with which you regarded me stirred something deep within my soul. Defender of the Light though you may have been, I wanted to see your dark side. Nay, I wanted to be the one to bring it out. Everyone has a dark side, after all. Yours would have been quite impressive, I believe. I wanted to make you snap, make you feel power coursing through your veins, and make you revel in it. Once you've had a taste of power, you crave it. I could have used that, I could have moulded you for my own purposes. It would have been interesting, everyone's favourite Gryffindor bending to my every whim--and you would have, I have no doubts. If I had been the one to give you power, you would've done anything to keep me from taking it away. Anything. That would, of course, have given me an immense power over you--and that, mon ami, was what I wanted above all.

Alas, I never was able to realise that goal. While we were still in school, you were always with that little redheaded plebeian. Honestly, befriending a Weasley was a big enough grievance, but involving yourself with one? That was far too low, even for your ilk. You could have had the best, and instead you settled for scraping the very bottom of the barrel. Disgusting. I wonder if she cried for you. What am I saying? She had to have cried for you, nearly everyone did. Two days after defeating Voldemort, Boy Wonder was dead at the hands of a Death Eater. How very Gryffindor of you not to use a Secret Keeper. Afraid you'd be betrayed as your parents were? Or was it blind stupidity disguised as courage? Either way, you died in the same way that you had lived your life--foolishly.

Your headstone is rather plain. Your name, the pertinent dates--hardly befitting of the deity you've further become since your death. The dirt and grass around the marker are hardly visible through the piles of roses heaped about. Hardly a day goes by without three fresh arrangements being placed on your grave. It's rather gaudy, I think. What use does a dead man have for flowers? Many of them even carry cards, as though you could read them. Even in death, you have fans all over the world. Those who utter it speak your name in a hushed whisper. Most deem themselves unworthy of saying the name of the one they've come to think of as a martyr. Ridiculous. You were nothing more than a stupid boy who grew into a foolhardy man. Where did all of your bravery get you in the end? In a wooden box six feet below where I stand. Father sends his regards, by the way--or rather, he would. He's locked away in Azkaban. He was Kissed, you know--he did kill the most loved member of the entire wizarding world, after all.

I have no idea why I make this weekly visit and talk to a piece of granite in a dismal little cemetery. Just as I have no idea why my first instinct was to cry when I learnt of your death--and why the dreams of the death no longer leave me with a smug sense of justice having been served. I call them nightmares now. It certainly isn't because I loved you, Harry Potter. Because I didn't.

I didn't.


End file.
